Blackbeard, putting his head down like a charging bull. "I
order you to row back to your vessel and take my message; and if you do
it not I will sink you all in a bunch! Into your boat, sir, and waste
not another minute. If you are not able to command your men, I will keep
you here and give them a coxswain who can."

Without another word, Bittern scuffled over the side, and, his boat
being brought up, he dropped into it.

"Now, men," he said, "I have a message from Captain Blackbeard to the
Revenge; bend to it as I steer that way."

"Give my pious regards to your Sir Nightcap," shouted Blackbeard. And
then, in a still higher tone, he yelled to them that if they disobeyed
their coxswain and turned their bow shoreward he would sink them all to
the unsounded depths of Hades. Without a protest the men pulled
vigorously towards the Revenge, while Black Paul, considering it a new
affront to be called "coxswain" when he was in reality captain,
earnestly sent Blackbeard to the same regions to which he had just
referred.

CHAPTER XVII

AN ORNAMENTED BEARD

It was about the middle of the afternoon when a large boat, well filled,
was seen approaching the Revenge from Blackbeard's vessel. As soon as it
had become known that this chief of all pirates of that day, this Edward
Thatch of England, was really coming on board the Revenge, not one word
was uttered among the crew on the subject of going ashore, although they
had been long at sea. The shore could wait when Blackbeard was coming.
Even to look upon this doughty desperado would be an honour and a joy to
the brawny scoundrels who made up the crew of the Revenge.

It might have been supposed that everything upon Captain Bonnet's vessel
had been made ready for the expected advent of Blackbeard, but nothing
seemed good enough, nothing seemed as effectively placed and arranged as
it might have been; and with execrations and commands, Bonnet hurried
here and there, making everything, if possible, more ship-shape than it
had been before.

"Stay you two in the background," he said to Ben Greenway and Dickory;
"you are both landsmen, and you don't count in a ceremony such as this
is going to be. Station your men as I told you, Bittern, and man the
yards when it is time."

Captain Bonnet, in his brave uniform and wearing a cocked hat with a
feather, his hand upon his sword-hilt, stood up tall and stately. When
the boat was made fast and the great pirate's head appeared